Joining delayed? Blame sudden global slowdown, overhiring in FY22

V Prasad (name changed) is a B Tech from Karnal in Andhra Pradesh.

A student of Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Anantapur, he was picked by Wipro and received an offer letter from the company in January this year, with a tentative joining date of June-July. But he is still waiting to hear from the company.

“My worry is the loan I have to repay and the instalments will begin from December-January … From our university there are some 200 students picked by Wipro. All of us are in the same situation,” he told Business Standard.

The university could not be contacted to verify the number of students who got letters from Wipro.

Many students have taken to social media platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn in the hope that their public outburst on the issue will make the companies have a rethink if they plan to revoke offer letters. Many on social media have also said the offer letters have been revoked. Companies named by these students include Wipro, HCLTech, Tech Mahindra, and Infosys.

Though the companies have denied they are revoking the offer, there is a delay in taking people on board.

Wipro, in an earlier response to news reports, said: “Wipro can confirm that it will honour all offer letters that have been (sent) to deserving candidates, in a phased manner.”

An email sent to Tech Mahindra did not get any response and Infosys is in a silent phase because its results are supposed to come on October 13.

Headhunters and recruitment experts say they have not heard about mass revocations of offer letters by IT companies. However, they do expect that people coming on board will be delayed. Many also added this would affect hiring targets for the next fiscal year (FY24).

“Over the past 12 months or so, there was a sense of over-hiring wherein they also pushed up the pays and middle management promotions. In anticipation of volumes of businesses, these companies spread their wings to even tier-2 and tier-3 cities and campuses. But now they are leveraging their human capital costs. This is likely to continue to some extent over the next two quarters which will be slow,” said Kamal Karanth, co-founder of Xpheno, a specialist staffing firm.

According to Karanth, most of the revocations of offers have been for those from institutions that are below top-notch ones like the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) or National Institutes of Technology (NITs).

Industry analysts add companies hired in a big way in FY21. With a sudden global slowdown they will go slow and it is evident in the hiring targets for FY22.

Some of the campuses Business Standard reached out to said they had not heard any of the companies asking their candidates to wait or even revoking their offer letters.

NIT Warangal and Coimbatore-based PSG College of Technology denied facing any such issues of IT companies revoking their offer letters.

“We have not faced any such issues. Rather, almost all of our students who had received offer letters have joined their respective recruiters,” said R Nadarajan, dean of placements and training, PSG College of Technology.

Another dean of placements in a reputed engineering college in Tamil Nadu said: “Most of the companies will not revoke offer letters in high numbers simply because when the tide turns they have to come back to the same campus. They may defer the joining date. We expect hiring to be slow this year and next.”